ZANE’S STORY

“Don’t let what happened to me, happen to you”!

My name is Zane, I’m a 46-year-old kiwi from Whakatane and have been hunting for over 35 years.

We decided to go deer hunting on the opening weekend of duck shooting season, the first weekend of May 2018. Thinking that nobody would be in the bush, and it would be safer for us as others would be sitting around the ponds!

We flew in and it was going to be a six-day trip which is one of our longer periods that we have spent in there. We just quickly put our stuff into the bags, and we took off up to the “Meat Market”. I call it that because there are heaps of deer just up the back of the hut and no one ever goes up there!

On the first day, and within  two hours of us landing, we went out for our initial walk. We decided to split up a little bit; I was going to go up one ridge and my hunting partner was going to cross through the gulley and go up the next ridge. The place is full of little ridges and gullies and as I made my way up, the wind blew up my backside. I thought this is useless carrying on up here, so I will just cross back over towards where he was. I crossed over and while I was waiting for him, I saw a really good patch of bush. I thought I should sneak in before he gets here, and I might be able to nail myself a deer.

I was just trying to be a bit of a cheeky bugger!

I looked back down to the gulley, and I could see him crossing as the sun reflected off his stainless steel barrel. Seeing how far away he was I thought I had plenty of time. So, I shot into the bushes and had a good look round and saw nothing. I started smashing my way back out, crashing and banging to make as much noise as I could, so he knew that I was coming back towards him.

I’m not too sure of exactly what happened from then on, but I recall climbing over a log facing towards him.

It nailed me just under the left armpit through the rib, and it came out just nicking my spine on the opposites side of my lower back. It just went straight through me, I must have been bent over!

I was hit with a 7mm08, the police said afterwards that it was at a distance of 18 m, it was pretty close!

Kinda stuck in my old ways as well, I wasn’t wearing any blaze as I only wear camo! I have always been worried about wearing faded blaze. We all know red deer coats go orange at some point and some people have been shot wearing faded blaze. If I just had a blaze orange hat, I most probably would not have been shot.

I collapsed onto my bum and I looked down to my legs and they were all crossed up into weird directions. It was just the intense pain in my left leg, it wasn’t the bullet that had just gone through my chest that I can remember. The pain in my leg was because the bullet shrapnel had pierced some of the nerves on my spine. I remember saying, “Ouch it hurts, it hurts” for an hour afterwards!

My buddy came over and he said, “I got to get you off this log!” He had the EPIRB and all the first aid stuff, I was useless and had nothing with me. Even though he shot me, he was there instantly to save my life! He set the PLB off straight away, got a fire going and cut the pack off me. He found where the bullet went in but couldn’t find where the bullet came out as I was laying on my back and bleeding internally at that stage.

He was then running around like a blue-arsed fly cutting away the branches so the helicopter could see in. I remember he tripped over my leg, which hurt like hell! It might have kept me awake longer instead of passing out.

It took a whole hour for the helicopter to get there, only 13 mins flying time but it took them the remainder to get organised and ready. So, when the helicopter turned up, I thought, Sweet that’s good but it took off back down to the river. I was like, Oh no what the hell is happening and I passed out at that stage.

They went down to the river to take the door off the helicopter and fit the external winch on. It took about five minutes to get that done and when they got back up my buddy had started CPR on me.

I don’t remember anything after that, it’s just what he has told me.

They winched me up and took me back down to the river again and stabilised me there because I had pretty much bled out internally and had nothing left! They flew me back to Taupo, stabilised me again there and pumped me with 17 units of blood. The helicopter from Waikato came down, picked me up and took me back with them.

At this stage the police were called in and retained my buddy as it was considered a potential crime scene, as they didn’t know what had happened yet. They checked him out, checked our gear out and checked we weren’t drinking or had been taking drugs. They flew back out to the site of the shooting to gather evidence.

They cut me open, right up to my chest, they removed my spleen and about 300 mm of bowel. They tried to save my kidney, but that was nearly the death of me by the sounds of it! I was still bleeding from the damaged kidney and not showing any signs of improvement. The following morning, they took me back to theatre and opened me up again. They removed the kidney, stitched me up and about 12 hours later they could see some colour start to return. It’s at that stage they thought I might pull through.

My wife turned up with the kids. The funny thing was, as I left the house, the last thing she said was, “Make sure they find your body as we need the life insurance!” There is a big joke around that lol! When the police knocked on the door, she was quite cool, calm and collected about it. I suppose the reality of it didn’t kick in. She got in the car and went over to get some family members and they all came up and stayed in a nearby motel.

She was by my side every single moment of everyday for the next 30 days! I was in ICU for 10 days and then I went to the next level down, HDU for 5 days. They moved me to the ward for a week, but I had a relapse as I had developed fluid around my lungs. They took me back into HDU and they drained my chest for 3 days. As soon as they drained my chest I was as good as gold!

I’m very lucky as the bullet missed my lungs and heart! When the bullet went in it had only just nicked a rib and I thought it hadn’t deformed too much. However, the X-ray shows that there are bits of lead spread from my chest cavity through to my spine and pelvis.

My hunting partner was devastated about it, he had never cried in his life until then and he was crying all the time. He was saying to my wife that he would support her in any way he could; if she needed money, or whatever he would be there. He asked for permission to see me, and she was fine with that as she knew it was an accident.

A short time later the reality kicked in that “I was buggered!” I’m never going to work again, so financially it was going to be bloody hard. I have a disability where I’m never going to be able to play with the kids properly again. I can’t do what I love anymore so, yeah, it’s really hard.

Recovery has been really slow, I was in a walker for about 2–3 weeks when I came home because I had cracked my pelvis as well. The police investigated the accident and said that they don’t know how I was still alive as they felt my heart and lungs should have been bruised or split apart from the energy of the bullet!

Considering, I reckon I’m quite good now, the recovery has been long. The doctors did say that if they can’t fix it within two years that’s how it’s going to be for the rest of my life. However, I have been lucky and had a lot of progress between the 2 and 2 ½ year stage. From now on though, I can’t see any more progress happening.

There is pain from the hip right down to the foot, as in bad pins and needles. I’m hypersensitive in the thigh, so if I touch a hair, it feels like someone is trying to rip it out. The calf muscle doesn’t work because one of the nerves has been severed. The rest of the muscles do work, but I have restricted ankle movement and hardly any feeling on the left-hand side of my foot.

If I have a shower, I get blood pooling in the foot and this feels like heaps and heaps of pressure which is quite sore. So afterwards I have to sit down and elevate the foot to drain it. Most of the time it’s just ice cold, as if you have had your foot in an ice bucket for 15 minutes.

I had a very sore tailbone for quite a while and that’s resolved itself over the past 12 months. I can’t sit down for too long, maybe a couple of hours before I’m buggered and have to lie down. I can’t stand in one spot as I have to be moving. I can walk a couple of kilometres now, but that’s the best I can do.

I have started getting out into the bush and walking the tracks which has been good for the mind and good for my body.

I haven’t been out hunting yet but I’m trying to organise a hunt with a mate of mine where we can walk up a gorge and watch a few slips from the side of the bank. I wouldn’t mind getting back out there but I’m still very cautious, not mentally, just physically! Just being able to get there and back without twisting an ankle, or anything like that just really slows me down. I do have those hiking sticks, but I find I get very sore around the shoulders when I use them.

I have a boat now, so I go fishing which I really enjoy. It does my head in to sit around home and try to do things. My wife has had to go back to studying and she is training to be a midwife because everything is arse about face now.

I’m ever so grateful to my wife as one of the things that really kept me alive was her talking in my ear at the hospital, telling me to “Stay strong” and “You got to survive this for the kids!”

So, with her and the kids by my side, I just keep on remembering them and doing that!